Readers may recall that last year, I wasn’t too happy when the
virtual blog tour company paid by my publisher changed the title Rowena and the Dark Lord to Rowena and the Dark Lard.Sales were NOT
stellar.However, the hilarity that
ensued was probably worth the typo.Seems there were all sorts of people willing to suggest alternative plot
lines for a book about Dark Lard.Many
were a mite more entertaining than the original concept (she said ruefully.)

Here’s a small sample:

Protagonist moves
back to Land’s End and opens up a bakery.

Protagonist and
love interest return to Land’s End and become pig farmers.

Protagonist
messes up another spell that causes all who look at her to turn into donuts.

It’s enough to make a grown writer cry.

Well, this time I did it to myself.

REALLY not cool to request a formal industry review for a book and misspell
the title.

No matter how it reads, "Cod
Name: Gypsy Moth" is not a tale <sic> about an undercover fish
running a bar off the coast of Newfoundland...

That wasn’t enough.People were quick
to respond with suggested plot lines on Facebook.Other authors (22 in fact) had to wade in <sic>.

he'd have
to scale back his expectations - a bar like that would be underwater in no
time.

and here's
me waiting with 'baited' breath

Readers
will dive right into that

That's a
whale of a tale

that book
will really "hook" a reader

Smells
pretty fishy to me

definitely
the wrong plaice at the wrong time.

We're
really floundering here; no trout about it.

Okay!In
the interest of sane people everywhere, I’ll stop on that last one.

It isn't easy being a female barkeep in the
final frontier...especially when you’re also a spy!

Nell Romana loves two things: the Blue Angel Bar, and Dalamar, a
notorious modern-day knight for hire. Too bad he doesn't know she is
actually an undercover agent.

The
bar is a magnet for all sorts of thirsty frontier types, and some of them don’t
have civilized manners. That’s no problem for Dalamar, who is built like a
warlord and keeps everyone in line. But when Dal is called away on a routine
job, Nell uncovers a rebel plot to overthrow the Federation. She has to
act fast and alone.

The Toronto Sun called her Canada’s “Queen of Comedy.”Library Journal compared her to Janet
Evanovich.Melodie Campbell got her
start writing standup.She has over 200
publications and nine awards for fiction.Code Name: Gypsy Moth (Imajin
Books) is her eighth book.

Pre-order Code Name: Gypsy Moth and get Rowena and the Dark Lord or The Artful Goddaughter free!(I love to introduce readers to my other
series.Email me at mcampbell50@cogeco.ca with proof of purchase and I will gift you your choice.)

Sunday, 22 March 2015

Everybody
knows they shouldn’t marry a writer. Mothers the world over have made
that obvious: “For Gawd Sake, never marry a marauding barbarian, a sex
pervert, or a writer.” (Or a politician, but that is my own personal
bias. Ignore me.)

But for some reason, lots of
innocent, unsuspecting people marry writers every year. Obviously, they
don’t know about the (gasp!) “Zone.” (More obviously, they didn’t have
the right mothers.)

Never mind: I’m here to help.

I
think it pays to understand that writers aren’t normal humans: they
write about people who don’t exist and things that never happened.
Their brains work differently. They have different needs. And in some
cases, they live on different planets (at least, my characters do, which
is kind of the same thing.)

Thing is, writers are
sensitive creatures. This can be attractive to some humans who think
that they can ‘help’ poor writer-beings (in the way that one might
rescue a stray dog.) True, we are easy to feed and grateful for
attention. We respond well to praise. And we can be adorable. So
there are many reasons you might wish to marry a writer, but here are 10
reasons why you shouldn’t:

The basics:

1.
Writers are hoarders. Your house will be filled with books. And more
books. It will be a shrine to books. The lost library of Alexandria
will pale in comparison.

2. Writers are addicts. We
mainline coffee. We’ve also been known to drink other beverages in
copious quantities, especially when together with other writers in
places called ‘bars.’

3. Writers are weird. Crime
Writers are particularly weird (as weird as horror writers.) You will
hear all sorts of gruesome research details at the dinner table. When
your parents are there. Maybe even with your parents in mind.

4.
Writers are deaf. We can’t hear you when we are in our offices,
pounding away at keyboards. Even if you come in the room. Even if you
yell in our ears.

5. Writers are single-minded. We
think that spending perfectly good vacation money to go to crime writing
conferences like Bouchercon is a really good idea. Especially if there
are other writers there with whom to drink beverages.

The bad reasons:

6. It may occasionally seem that we’d rather spend time with our characters than our family or friends. (See 9 below.)

7. We rarely sleep through the night. (It’s hard to sleep when you’re typing. Also, all that coffee...)

8.
Our Google Search history is a thing of nightmares. (Don’t look. No
really – don’t. And I’m not just talking about ways to avoid taxes…
although if anyone knows a really fool-proof scheme, please email me.)

And the really bad reasons:

9. If we could have affairs with our beloved protagonists, we probably would. (No! Did I say that out loud?)

10. We know at least twenty ways to kill you and not get caught.

RE
that last one: If you are married to a writer, don’t worry over-much.
Usually writers do not kill the hand that feeds them. Mostly, we are
way too focused on figuring out ways to kill our agents, editors, and
particularly, reviewers.

Code Name: Gypsy Moth now available for pre-order! "a worthy tribute to Douglas Adams"Pre-order on AMAZON
Pre-order on KOBO
Pre-order on SMASHWORDS

Coming April 1 from Imajin books! Preorder now

It isn't easy being a female barkeep in
the final frontier...especially when you're also
a spy!

Nell Romano loves two things: the Blue Angel Bar, and Dalamar, a
notorious
modern-day knight for hire. Too bad he doesn't know she
is actually an undercover agent.

The bar is a magnet for all sorts of thirsty frontier types, and some of
them don’t have civilized manners. That’s no problem for Dalamar, who
is built like a warlord and keeps everyone in line. But when Dal leaves on a
routine job, Nell uncovers a rebel plot to overthrow the Federation.
She has to act fast and alone.

Then her cover is
blown, and more than their love is put to the test....

Friday, 13 March 2015

It is my great pleasure to welcome friend and fellow author Peter Fritze to these pages. Peter writes riveting crime novels featuring the high stakes world of lawyers. This post made me smile and cringe...read it and you'll see. Haven't we all been there, in some way?

Back From the Void

by Peter Fritze

I’m recently out with my second book, False Guilt. Like my first, The
Case for Killing, it uses a fictional Toronto law firm, Collins, Shaw LLP,
as a loose backdrop.

The protagonists in both books are lawyers with, well,
issues. I hope it goes without saying that the lawyers are fictional like the
law firm. Being sued is not my idea of a good time.

Both protagonists are professionally very competent. Their
issues are personal. And doozies. Without flawed characters, what would there
be to write about?

In my first years as a lawyer, I didn’t always feel graced
with competence. Like any profession, it took a while to get the requisite
experience under my belt. And occasionally technology wasn’t my friend.

My most acute experience in this regard was when I joined a
downtown Toronto firm from a government agency as a fifth year associate. It
was a long time ago; here’s my recollection of events.

The firm was handling a lot of deals. After only a few
weeks, at 4:00 p.m. on a Friday, I was brought in to junior on a large merger.

My first task was to draft a merger agreement for
circulation to all the parties Monday morning at 10:00. Government work hadn’t
taught me how to draft huge corporate documents and the partner-in-charge knew
that. He pointed me to the precedent system and said I could call for help any
time over the weekend.

After three cognacs at home that evening, I was ready for
the challenge. I worked all weekend. By Sunday evening, I had a presentable
document—of about 130 pages—for the partner to review early Monday morning. If memory
serves, I only called him once. Anything more, I figured, was a career-limiting
move.

And then, about 8:00 Sunday evening, as I made finishing
touches on my computer, the latest draft of the document disappeared from the IT
system. I never learned why but I’m pretty sure it was my fault. Yup. Gone
without a trace. Vanished. Lost in the void.

A little technological context here. The firm’s system was
first rate, but this was the late 1980s. By today’s standards, everything was rudimentary.
And locating a backup? That definitely was for the IT department.

Except, horror upon horror upon horror, it was Sunday
evening. Who would be around? And the changes from earlier drafts of the
document had been mammoth. There was no way I had the time or energy to start
the revisions over. But there also was no way I was greeting the partner Monday
morning with a stubbly face, dark rings under my eyes and a half-assed
document. That would be a real career-limiting move.

For an hour, I searched and searched some more. Throughout,
I groaned with panic. Eventually, a kind evenings-and-weekends assistant heard
me. “Oh, call this pager number,” she said. “It’s for IT. If it’s important enough,
they’ll come in.”

Come in? On a Sunday
evening? Now that definitelywasn’t
something I’d seen at the government. By 9:30, the document was back on my
computer screen. And Monday morning, the partner had a hard copy on his desk. I
acted as if drafting it had been a walk in the park. More like a walk into
quicksand. For days after, I offered profuse thanks to the IT person for saving
me. Eventually he told me to shut up.

My protagonists worry about murder, not lost documents. But
for those sixty minutes on that Sunday, to me, the horror seemed just as real.

What's your worst IT catastrophe, Readers? Share with us here in the comments!

False Guilt

Paul Tews, a rising Toronto mergers and acquisitions lawyer,
is on a leave of absence for anxiety. An invitation to Rome from a woman with
whom he’d once had a close encounter seems like a perfect remedy. Instead he
finds that all things captivating have an ugly side. Friends confess baffling
secrets. An art collector leads a double life. Passion deceives.

Paul must save himself from it all—and his past involvement
with murder.

Peter
Fritze practiced law as a solicitor in an Ontario government agency, partner in
a major Toronto law firm and general counsel of a Canadian multinational. He’s
now following his lifetime interest in storytelling by writing thrillers.

In
April 2014, Peter self-published The Case for
Killing. It’s the tale of two plans for murder colliding against
the backdrop of a fictitious Toronto law firm, Collins, Shaw LLP.

False
Guilt was self-published
in February 2015. Taking place in Toronto and Rome, a Collins, Shaw lawyer battles
his past involvement with murder.

Peter
was born in Hamilton, Canada and raised in nearby Dundas. He now lives in
Toronto.

Saturday, 7 March 2015

One thing the Catholic Church really has
going for it is a vast army of Guardian Angels.These are wonderful beings whose sole purpose is to guide you through
life, and prevent you from making really embarrassing mistakes…those everyday
kind of mistakes such as hopping a last minute flight to Argentina with Raoul
instead of baking more cookies for the school fundraiser, like you promised.

But for those of us who weren’t born
Catholic, what we need is a Fairy Godmother.Not the old fashioned kind who dresses in 1950s prom dresses and goes
around changing vegetables into vehicles.Nope – I want someone on my side: a modern, down-to-earth Fairy
Godmother, who will answer all those pesky questions that everyone else always
sidelines.

In fact, I can visualize my personal Fairy
Godmother.She would be about 65 years
old (but would only admit to 49) with a petrified blond hairdo and a Brooklyn
accent.Her orange lipstick would be a
little too thick, and she’d carry one of those bombproof organizer
handbags.Of course, she’d be full of
wonderfully useful advice, like exactly how far up are you supposed to
shave your legs?

“The problem with you girls today is you
don’t wear proper foundation garments.Go without a bra?You’re going to
be KICKING them in a few years…”

Instead of going for tea at the Arcadian
Room, she’d drag me off for salad and Singapore Slings at the Four Seasons.

“Nothing wrong with a little nip now and
then, dearie.Puts colour in your
cheeks.Don’t you read Cosmo?”And while we’re munching and slurping
(“Drinking girl’s diet – gotta watch those hips”) she’d give me nonstop advice
about how to get along in life.

“Forget Good Housekeeping – the way to a
man’s heart is not tuna casseroles.But
here’s how to make a really good martini...”

“Face it, dearie.After the age of 40, what every girl really
needs is a good esthetician…”

“You’ve never been to Paris?That’s it – we’re going in April.I know this little place on the Rue la
Fontaine that serves the best coquille…”

So I’d like to be here writing my column
next month, but chances are I’ll be in Paris with my Fairy Godmother.

Of course, I recognize a Fairy Godmother
isn’t for everyone.Perhaps the guys
would prefer to have a Fairy Godfather…or then again, perhaps they wouldn’t…